Water cuts and rising food prices leave Mosul facing crisis

Fighting between Iraqi troops and Islamic State militants has cut water supplies across a large part of Mosul, where poorer families are already struggling to feed themselves, and a local official said the increasingly encircled city was in crisis. Water was cut to 650,000 people – or 40 percent of residents – when a pipeline was hit during fighting between the

jihadists and U.S.-backed Iraqi government forces trying to crush them in their northern Iraq stronghold, a local official said. “We are facing a humanitarian catastrophe,” said Hussam al-Abar, a member of Mosul’s Nineveh provincial council, adding that 1.5 million people were still inside Mosul. He said the pipeline ran through a contested part of the city and could not be reached by repair teams. READ MORE